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Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The California Dept. of Finance's latest estimate of the pace of California's population growth puts the rate at a slow 0.9% last year. Why is the Dept. of Finance in charge. Probably because state revenue over the long haul depends on the state's economic growth rate which, in turn, is partly dependent on population growth.

California experienced supernormal growth, i.e., notably faster than the rest of the U.S. from statehood in the mid-19th century until 1990, the end of the Cold War (and the stimulus of military expenditures). Growth in the state was particularly rapid in the period 1940-1990, i.e., World War II + Korean War + Vietnam War + Cold War. Projections by the Census Bureau suggest California will not be having supernormal growth for the indefinite future. Supernormal growth implies an expanding pie which generates state tax revenue allowing program expansion without either tax rate increases or cutting back one program to pay for another. Slow growth, however, means that such nasty trade-offs exist. In a slow growth environment, there will be repercussions for the UC budget since, at the end of the day, the legislature knows UC has a revenue source other than state allocations: tuition.

We have noted in prior posts that the governor is pushing for a rainy day fund. And we have noted that such funds are unlikely to provide UC budget relief. At best, they smooth out slow growth but they don't change the trend.

From time to time we have posted about the errant state senator Leland Yee and his current travails. His alleged partner in crime is in jail but he nonetheless participated in a UC-Berkeley symposium:

Chinatown tong leader Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow remains
jailed without bail on federal racketeering charges - but he was able
to take part by phone the other night in a journalism symposium at
UC Berkeley. Before he was hit with money-laundering and other charges last month, Chow was invited to be part of a panel at the Logan Symposium on Investigative Journalism, moderated by PBS "Frontline" producer Lowell Bergman.Bergman,
who teaches at the Berkeley journalism school, had interviewed Chow for
an upcoming "Frontline" report about being inducted as a youngster into
an organized-crime group in Macau. Bergman's report traces the
development of the former Portuguese colony into a gambling capital and
details how Chinese triads have been used to collect gambling debts. "We
try to do more than just have reporters talking," Bergman said of his
phone-in guest, who answered a few questions for attendees Friday night. No, he didn't discuss his criminal case...

So if and when Sen. Yee ends up in the pokey, he, too, can hope to continue to participate in UC affairs by phone. Hopefully, his efforts then will be more helpful than his past attempts to muck around with UC pension plan governance.

The Daily Bruin did some more number crunching and finds that although UCLA is hard to get into, almost two thirds of those accepted don't come.

UCLA has been the most applied to school in the nation for several
years, but only about a third of its admitted applicants actually decide
to attend the university.
UCLA’s yield rate, or the rate at which admitted students accept
their admission offers, was about 35 percent in 2012, which is high for
UC campuses but low compared to similar public institutions and West
Coast private colleges. This year’s deadline for admitted students to commit to University of California schools is Thursday...

Our earlier posts on the Sterling affair and UCLA noted the embarrassing ad that appeared in the LA Times on Sunday in which Sterling announced his donation to the UCLA Dept. of Nephrology. See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-happens-when-you-post-too-soon.html. UCLA has now rejected the donation. The university also took pains to point out that Sterling took out the ad thanking himself. And it said, apparently in communications with the news media, that the promise of a lab naming and signage thanking is not part of the written record related to the donation.

In that UCLA statement we find:...UCLA has received numerous inquiries about an advertisement in Sunday’s
Los Angeles Times falsely suggesting that it was UCLA publicly thanking
him for the gift. The ad was placed by Mr. Sterling, not the university.

From the Daily Bruin:...The ad claims that a gold-colored plaque will be placed in the main
lobby of UCLA’s nephrology building in honor of the Sterlings. It also
claims UCLA plans to name a research lab in their name, “The UCLA Donald
T. Sterling Structural Biology Kidney Research Laboratory.” However, UCLA said it did not place the ad in the paper. It said the
ad falsely suggests the university is publicly thanking Sterling for the
donation. UCLA said it thinks Sterling placed the ad in the paper. Documentation concerning the donation does not address any signage or
naming of a research laboratory, according to a UCLA statement...

It's worth parsing this story a bit more. No one who ever read the LA Times - and someone in the UCLA fund raising area must be reading the paper - could not have known that Sterling would run an ad thanking himself (since the newspaper over the years was filled with such self-promotion ads). Sterling also promoted his real estate holdings, law firm, etc. in such ads. You can find a sampling of Sterling ads from the LA Times in http://franklinavenue.blogspot.com/search/label/Donald%20Sterling So that an ad would appear was never in question.

What about the signage and the lab naming. It is quite possible that Sterling invented these claims on his own. He is known for placing ads in the LA Times thanking himself for a homeless facility and for some kind of children's summer camp that don't exist beyond a concept in his own mind. However, the Daily Bruin's version of the signage-lab part of the story seems to rest on a statement by UCLA that the signage and lab are not part of the written documentation. That statement doesn't rule out that some UCLA fundraising official did not make some kind of oral hint to Sterling about the signage and lab. It seems unlikely that UCLA received a check in the mail from Sterling without some romancing by fund raisers. If you stopped 100 billionaires on the street (that's a joke, friends!) and asked them what the word "nephrology" meant, how many would know? (Maybe it involves the study of nephews.) Did Sterling or someone close to him have kidney problems? Exactly, how was he approached? What was said, apart from written documentation? Was whoever did the romancing unaware of Sterling's ad running, legal problems over racial discrimination in housing, etc.?

We are not saying that every donor's past baggage has to be closely scrutinized. There is odd naming around that doesn't do much harm. One could wonder about naming the UCLA's (public) hospital after Ronald Reagan - who railed against socialized medicine. (The naming was the result of support obtained by former Reagan associates.) UC supports the Keck telescope. Keck was a California oilman. He never forgave then-California Governor Earl Warren for founding the state's freeway system in 1947 by imposing a hike in the gasoline tax and he (Keck) was much involved in the later extreme right-wing "Impeach Earl Warren campaign" when Warren was Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. UCLA undoubtedly has received numerous Ford Foundation grants although Henry Ford was notorious for fostering virulent anti-Semitism though a newspaper he owned in the 1920s.

There are undoubtedly other such examples. But the passage of time helps. The Ford Foundation no longer has any links to the car company and Henry is long since dead. Generally, naming things after dead people is less likely to cause embarrassment than naming them after live people - who still have the capacity to undertake new indiscretions. While total screening for political correctness is not called for, UCLA might take the opportunity created by the Sterling for revisiting and revising internal guidelines for fund raisers concerning who to romance and what to say (oral as well as written) to potential targets of such romancing.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Inside Higher Ed runs a long article on faculty concerns and protests related to Confucius Institutes on campuses. The article refers to a faculty response at the U of Chicago and then notes other similar developments elsewhere. The concerns related to the Institutes as arms of the Chinese government. Excerpt:

Professors at the University of Chicago have renewed their opposition to
the Chinese-government funded Confucius Institute on their campus, with
more than 100 of them signing a petition
calling on the Council of the University Senate to vote to terminate
the university’s contract with Hanban, the government entity that
oversees the centers of Chinese language teaching and research...

The establishment of Confucius Institutes on U.S. campuses has been controversial.
On the one hand, universities -- especially those that don't have
robust Chinese language departments of their own -- have welcomed the
influx of foreign money and the ability to import Chinese language
instructors at Hanban's expense. On the other, many have raised concerns
that in partnering with a Chinese government entity to support the
teaching of language and culture, universities are in effect ceding
their control over the curriculum...

As blog readers will know, Gov. Brown is currently pushing for a rainy day fund proposition to go on the November ballot. It would replace a proposition that the legislature put on the ballot as part of a Schwarzenegger-era budget deal. We have noted in a prior post that the state already has a reserve in its General Fund. That reserve grows if spending is kept below revenue. So you can accumulate a rainy day fund without the complicated formulas which the Brown proposal or the alternative entail. The Legislative Analyst has now pointed this simple fact out in a new publication.

One thing about rainy day funds with complicated formulas that are supposed to lock up money. They leak. It is doubtful, however, that UC would be the recipient of the leakage. But we are unlikely to avoid having one of the two rainy day funds on the ballot since, if the legislative does nothing, the original one will appear. Probably, the best outcome would be that one of the two appears in November and is defeated. But the more likely outcome is that the governor's proposal will appear (enough Republicans seem favorably inclined to his version to get it on the ballot) and then - because saving for a rainy day is such an appealing idea - it is approved by voters.

You may have seen news articles about a new study finding California's Master Plan of 1960 - a major accomplishment of then-Governor Pat Brown - to be out of date. The report appears to be the work of a group of grad students from a seminar of the U of Pennsylvania and seems to be an assemblage of complaints about the Master Plan that have been made over the years by others including the complaint of Pat Brown's son and current Governor Jerry Brown that UC's budget allocation from the state is not linked to performance measures.

Blog readers will know that early in the history of the UCLA Grand Hotel, the Faculty Center was supposed to be demolished to make way for it. After a major protest - in which this blog had a significant role - the Grand Hotel was moved to another location. Now the LA Conservancy wants the Faculty Center to be designated as a California Historical Resource. Such a designation might impede future attempts to demolish it. UCLA is officially opposed, according to an article in the LA Conservancy newsletter (link below). However, the LA Cultural Heritage Commission has unanimously supported the proposal and has forwarded its recommendation to the LA City Council. On verra.

Monday, April 28, 2014

UC prez Napolitano wrote an op ed in the Washington Post entitled "How to diversify a campus, in spite of the Supreme Court." Based on the headline, one would think UC has found a way to have affirmative action results without the affirmative action that the Supremes increasingly dislike. However, when you read the op ed it closes with the following statement:...For nearly two decades, we have served as a laboratory of innovation for
race-blind strategies to promote diversity on our campuses. We will
continue these vital efforts. But as long as the university is
prohibited from considering all of an applicant’s characteristics, we
will be doing so with one arm tied tightly behind our backs.

Beyond that confusion, the op ed appearing in the Wash Post rather than a California venue (Sacramento Bee, LA Times, SF Chronicle, SJ Mercury-News, etc.) suggests the UC prez has an eye on future national endeavors. That may be an inadvertent result and not what she intended to convey. But the UC PR folks should know better.

More number crunching of the admissions numbers, this time courtesy of the Bruin:

California applicants this year had a smaller chance of receiving an
acceptance letter to UCLA than nonresident applicants – a growing trend
for at least the past six years.

About 16 percent of California students who applied got into UCLA,
compared to 26.2 percent of out-of-state students and 17 percent of
international students, according to preliminary admissions data released by the University of California Office of the President earlier this month. Applicants
from outside of California made up roughly 42 percent of the admits to
UCLA this year, indicating a steady yet significant increase from past
years.

UCLA accepts out-of-state students at a higher rate because fewer of
them actually accept the offer to UCLA, said Youlonda Copeland-Morgan,
vice chancellor for enrollment at UCLA.

The further students live away from UCLA, the less likely they are to
accept the admission offer, Copeland-Morgan said. She said nonresidents
are less likely to accept the offer because they would pay extra
tuition and have other options closer to their home...

We noted in prior posts the $10 million whistleblower settlement that UCLA agreed to pay to one of its docs as a trial was coming to an end. And we noted that the issue raised - essentially what constitutes a conflict of interest - won't just go away as folks in Murphy Hall might hope. As an illustration - and helping to keep the matter alive - is an editorial in the Daily Bruin [excerpt]:

As the University of California Board of Regents well knows, court
settlements can be useful in dodging unfavorable legal outcomes and the
bad press that accompanies them. But a recent $10 million settlement in a whistleblower-retaliation case
involving UCLA doctors illustrates why settlements pose a challenge for
a public university. Namely, they bury information and slow reform that
could address the root cause of lawsuits. Last week, the regents agreed to shell out $10 million to Dr. Robert
Pedowitz, former chairman of UCLA’s orthopedic surgery department.
Pedowitz alleged that the university retaliated against him after he
pointed out that UCLA physicians were failing to disclose payments from
medical device-makers and other outside groups. As part of the settlement, Pedowitz left the UCLA faculty, and the university denied all wrongdoing. A UCLA statement on the case claims that “multiple
investigations by university officials and independent investigators
concluded that conduct by faculty members was lawful.” But it doesn’t comment on the important question of whether Pedowitz was castigated for raising concerns. While the University’s incentive to press for a settlement
instead of allowing a jury to come to a verdict in order to protect the
University’s good name and reputation is clear, the blanket denial of
impropriety that accompanies such agreements leaves important answers
shrouded in darkness. Commissioning an independent investigation of the serious
issues brought forth in this court case would go a long way to address
concerns of secrecy and counter accusations that UCLA merely pays its
way out of ethical quandaries...

The editorial goes on to resurrect the large settlement paid out to another UCLA doc - Christian Head - for racial discrimination and harassment.

And, although not mentioned in the Bruin editorial, there is the driving-while-black case of LA Superior Court Judge David Cunningham against the UCLA police which will eventually either go to trial or lead to some kind of settlement. He is asking for $10 million - that familiar number - from the university. See: http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2014/02/10-million.html

Meanwhile, the Donald Sterling affair about which we blogged yesterday raises the issue of what the university does when donors misbehave. Probably, letting the UCLA name be used in bragging ads by the donor - see the posts of yesterday - isn't the best response. (Yours truly did not spot a repeat of that ad in today's LA Times.) Note: ...Councilman Bernard Parks said Sunday he is drafting a City Council
resolution that will demand an apology to Magic Johnson and “the entire
Los Angeles community" and ask local newspapers, including the Los
Angeles Times, to stop running ads for Sterling “that display his
commercial real estate empire and his alleged civic activities.” ... Excerpt from http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-80033885/

UPDATE: LAObserved picks up on yesterday's Sterling-UCLA ad in the LA Times:

...Did you see the half-page business section ad today, thanking Donald
and Shelly Sterling for their largesse to the UCLA nephrology
department? There's so much wrong with that lack of judgment, never mind
that the ad used the same ego-stroking headshots featured in all the
other ugly Sterling Foundation ads that also decorate the Clippers' NBA
website. Supposedly, Sterling himself applies the lipstick on these pigs, sits
in his office designing the ads for which, according to my highly
reputable source, he pays The Times a bargain-basement space rate. Or
maybe nothing at all -- according to the online magazine Quixo, The
Times trades the ad space for paper promotions at Clipper games...

More than $5 million in scholarships and grants were distributed by
the Donald T. Sterling Charitable Foundation at its year-end Charity
Awards luncheon at Spago.

Singer Debby Boone provided the entertainment while Dr. Michael
Beckwith and Rabbi David Baron delivered stirring invocations before
it was time for Beverly Hills-philanthropist and entrepreneur Donald
Sterling to do the honors of presenting the grants to the
representatives of 30 charities and eight high schools.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

We recently posted about a planned meeting between a Regent (Bonnie Reiss) and some UCLA students. We weren't there but a Daily Bruin reporter acted as our fly on the wall.

It appears that much of what they talked about was the condition of the UC budget and, in particular, what might happen when the temporary Prop 30 revenues come to an end. Excerpt:

A University of California regent highlighted funding as the main challenge facing the University in a meeting with UCLA students on Thursday.UC Regent Bonnie Reiss met with about 15 members of the
Undergraduate Students Association Council External Vice President’s
office and representatives of various student groups to discuss issues
faced by UCLA students. The meeting opened with a discussion of the goals of the UC Board of Regents, with a focus on the UC’s financial future. Reiss warned students that the funding provided to the UC by the passage of 2012′s Proposition 30 tax initiative, which prevented billions of dollars in budget cuts, will run out...

The story of the $10 million whistleblower payout in the med school keeps going. Today's LA Times business section carries a front page story about the general issue of conflict of interest. As we have noted in past postings, no one pays out $10 million at the closing of a trial unless the fear is that the ultimate court decision could be a lot more than that. [The Times repeats the university's claim - attributed to the Regents - that the settlement was just to save litigation time and costs. But the costs were already well underway since the settlement came at the end of the trial. Moreover, while technically the Regents have to approve such payouts, the Regents don't act unilaterally. They rubber stamp the recommendations of university lawyers.]

Excerpt from the LA Times story:

...A new study in this month's Journal of the American Medical Assn.
raised a red flag generally about university officials such as Eugene
Washington, the dean of UCLA's medical school who also serves on the
board of healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson. The world's biggest
medical-products maker paid Washington more than $260,000 in cash and
stock last year as a company director. "There are real risks
here," said Walid Gellad, assistant professor of medicine at the
University of Pittsburgh and co-author of the JAMA study. "Are the
policies in place enough to govern these potential conflicts among the
leadership of academic medical centers?" Meanwhile, the
$10-million, mid-trial settlement this week between the UC system and
the former head of orthopedic surgery at UCLA has prompted a consumer
group to seek an independent investigation by California Atty. Gen.
Kamala Harris or Gov. Jerry Brown..."

Friday, April 25, 2014

Thirty-five members of Congress from California have signed a letter
released to the public on Wednesday, urging the University of California
to keep funding the Lick Observatory. The Lick Observatory, located on Mt. Hamilton near San Jose, is a
UC-owned and operated facility that houses nine telescopes, five of
which are currently used for research purposes.Despite protests from University researchers and astronomers, the facility is set to stop receiving UC funds after 2018. The letter, addressed to UC President Janet Napolitano, responds to
an earlier one Napolitano sent in March explaining the reasons behind
defunding the facility – namely, that astronomers are using the
observatory less.

The UC Observatories Board, an umbrella body that manages systemwide
research and funds for astronomy, recommended that the UC Office of the
President use its funding for Lick to funnel resources into newer
facilities. The University is financially invested in the W. M. Keck
Observatory in Hawaii, as well as a new $1.2 billion planned
Thirty-Meter Telescope. As a rebuttal to the UC’s claims, the letter cited current research
opportunities at the observatory to justify why it should continue to
receive UC funding...

At his formal investiture ceremony Thursday, UC Riverside Chancellor
Kim A. Wilcox called for significant expansions in enrollment, faculty
and the campus itself. UC Riverside should grow its student ranks
from the current 22,000 to 25,000 over the next six years as called for
in its master plan but also go beyond that in the future, Wilcox said.
The university will need to hire 300 more faculty members to accommodate
growth and replace retiring professors, he added, according to an
advance transcript of his speech. In addition, the university
should move ahead with plans for new buildings, including a new
interdisciplinary research building, and consider an events center for
conferences and sports. He also suggested the university might need to
build on property south of the campus along the 215 Freeway in the
future...

Thursday, April 24, 2014

At one time, the Hotel Bel Air just north of UCLA was sometimes used for faculty and other recruitment purposes. But now comes word of a possible boycott:

From the LA Times:

Is this the end of designer dinners at the Hotel Bel-Air and charity fashion shows at the Beverly Hills Hotel? If high-profile members of the fashion community have their way, maybe. Several
vocal personalities, including Decades boutique co-owner Cameron Silver
and designers Brian Atwood and Peter Som have taken to social media to
call for a boycott of the Beverly Hills Hotel and a host of other
high-end Dorchester Collection properties around the globe with ties to
the sultanate of Brunei. (The Dorchester Collection is owned by the
Brunei Investment Agency, an arm of the Brunei government that manages
the oil-rich country's luxury hotels in Europe and the U.S.) Silver
told the Los Angeles Times that the boycott was in response to a recent
law taking effect this month that increases the punishment for
committing a homosexual act from a 10-year prison sentence to death by
stoning...

From the Daily Bruin:A University of California regent will come to UCLA on Thursday, as
part of a larger effort to increase communication between the UC
officials and students.Undergraduate Students Association Council External Vice President
Maryssa Hall invited UC Regent Bonnie Reiss to speak with UCLA students
in an effort to increase transparency regarding regental actions. “The goal of my visit is to stay connected to students, to hear what
is important to them and what challenges they face,” Reiss said...

Yesterday, we posted about a story concerning a whistleblower at UCLA who got a $10 million out-of-court settlement from the university as the trial was reaching its end. We noted that no one shells out $10 million unless there is a fear that an eventual court decision might cost a lot more. Moreover, it's hard to argue that this settlement was aimed at avoiding litigation costs since the case had gone to trial and so there had already been litigation costs. In this case, the whistleblower was a UCLA doc who felt there were conflicts of interest among his colleagues.

Blog readers will know of prior posts concerning a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision that college football players at Northwestern U are essentially employees and are entitled, therefore, to legal protections to unionize. The ruling does not apply directly to UCLA since UCLA is a public institution and the NLRB covers private sector employees. However, we have noted that a former UCLA athlete has been active in the unionization movement. California's PERB - which covers public sector employees - could conceivably follow the NLRB's ruling since the statutory language under which it operates is similar. But it doesn't have to.

In any event, the NY Times carries an article describing the efforts by Northwestern to discourage players from voting for a union "As soon as a National Labor Relations Board official ruled that
scholarship football players had the right to unionize, the university
began a wide-ranging campaign to defeat a vote..."

UPDATE: The full NLRB has agreed to a request by Northwestern to review the case. NLRB release below:

NLRB Grants Request for Review in Northwestern University Athletes Case

April 24, 2014

The National Labor Relations Board has granted Northwestern
University’s Request for Review of the Regional Director’s March 26,
2014 decision in 13-RC-121359.
The Regional Director found the University’s grant-in-aid scholarship
football players are employees under the National Labor Relations Act.
The election will take place on April 25, 2014
but the ballots will be impounded until the Board issues a decision
affirming, modifying or reversing the Regional Director’s decision.

The Board intends to issue a subsequent notice establishing a schedule for the filing of briefs on review and inviting amicus briefs, to afford the parties and interested amici the opportunity to address issues raised in this case.

The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency
vested with the power to safeguard employees’ rights to organize and to
determine whether to have a union as their bargaining representative.
The agency also acts to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices
committed by private sector employers and unions.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

It's not every day that UC makes the front page of the LA Times. But today's paper has news of a whistleblower settlement for $10 million (which is 1/15th of a Grand Hotel). Don't know more than what the LA Times reports except that you don't shell out $10 million unless you fear you might lose in court and have to pay a hell of a lot more. Note that the settlement was reached just before closing arguments in court.

Excerpt:University of California regents agreed to pay $10 million to the former chairman of UCLA's
orthopedic surgery department, who had alleged that the well-known
medical school allowed doctors to take industry payments that may have
compromised patient care. The settlement reached
Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court came just before closing
arguments were due to begin in a whistleblower-retaliation case brought
by Dr. Robert Pedowitz, 54, a surgeon who was recruited to UCLA in 2009
to run the orthopedic surgery department.In 2012, the surgeon sued UCLA, the UC regents,
fellow surgeons and senior university officials, alleging they failed to
act on his complaints about widespread conflicts of interest and later
retaliated against him for speaking up...

We are heading towards the primary election and the Secretary of State has released registration data for gubernatorial election years that can be seen above. The major trends have been the growth of "no-party" voters and the decline of the GOP. Note that the primary will be held under the relatively new "top-2" rules. Last time around, the Dems were better than the GOP in figuring out how the top-2 system worked, i.e., you can't just appeal to your party's base in competitive districts, which is why the Dems for a time won enough swing districts to attain a supermajority 2/3 in the legislature. We'll see what learning has occurred this time around.

The primary date is June 3 which is before the legislature is likely to have adopted a new state budget. Possibly, the results of the primary could influence that budget if some political trend is discernible.

In what advocates are calling an extremely significant development in
the fight for gender-neutral restrooms on college campuses, graduate
student workers across the University of California System say they’ve
reached a tentative contract agreement on language that establishes
access to such facilities as a “right.” The workers also reached a similar agreement on language regarding access to lactation stations...

The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court upholding a Michigan ballot prop that banned affirmative action (AA) in university admissions obviously means that California's similar Prop 209 ban is not open to challenge at the Supreme Court. Blog readers will know that legislative Dems had planned to put a prop on the ballot repealing 209. But then two things happened. 1) They lost the 2/3 needed in the state senate to put a constitutional amendments on the ballot, thanks to the suspension of 3 senators. And 2) Asian-background legislators dropped their support of the repeal prop when their constituents complained.

Given the direction of the Supreme Court and the political developments at the state level, it appears that Prop 209 will remain in effect for the indefinite future. The Daily Bruin quotes a lawyer for the BAM group - the one that yells at Napolitano at Regents meetings - as saying the decision will not stand. See: http://dailybruin.com/2014/04/22/supreme-court-upholds-michigans-affirmative-action-ban/ What does that mean? You can't appeal a Supreme Court decision. But the lawyer's name is George Washington (I kid you not), so maybe he knows something.

The northbound San Diego (405) Freeway will be closed between the
Santa Monica (10) Freeway and Santa Monica Boulevard for five hours
early Thursday. The closure will begin at midnight and end at 5 a.m., according to Metro. Ramp closures will begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The freeway closure is needed to facilitate installation of mainline traffic loops, according to Metro.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Yesterday, KCRW's Which Way LA? aired a segment on the student campaign to divest from fossil fuel companies in its endowment and pension fund. Pretty much, everyone said what you would expect. It came down to students wanting to save the planet vs. a finance type who said that constraining investment choice could produce suboptimal returns. What wasn't discussed was the politics of investing in someone's pet project or divesting from someone's disfavored project. UC has sometimes gone in that direction so it is already on a slippery slope. But the more it goes towards a social-political portfolio, the more it invites such departures from standard investing. The pension plan in particular is underfunded and UC is trying to get the state to recognized its liability for the plan. Regents are the trustees of the pension fund on behalf of retirees and future retirees. Moves that invite thinking that the funding of the plan is someone's political toy are not helpful in persuading the state to take responsibility. Moreover, exactly where the governor stands is unclear. Brown is taking heat from environmentalists who think he is too friendly to fracking. However, Brown sees that states with lots of fossil fuel production are benefiting from the revenues and economic stimulus that come, or could come from a production boom. He is worried about future revenues for the state when Prop 30 expires. He is looking for funding for his high-speed rail plan. Remarkably, none of this was mentioned in the broadcast.

You can find a link to the broadcast below. Slide to around the 5 minute mark to hear the fossil fuel segment.

The news media are still picking through the recently released UC admissions data. From the LA Times:

For the first time, the number of Latinos from California offered freshman admission to the University of California was larger than that for whites. Reflecting
demographic trends, 28.8% of those admitted to at least one UC campus
were Latino, compared with 26.8% white. At 36.2%, Asian Americans again
made up the largest ethnic group among admitted students from
California. Blacks from California were just 4.2%...

As blog readers will know, Gov. Jerry Brown has been big on online courses in public higher ed. Now one of his GOP rivals in the upcoming November election is outdoing Brown. As part of an education platform (mainly dealing with K-12), Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari has a higher ed proposal:

From the LA Times:

He would... require the University of California and California State
University systems to place 20% of their courses online within four
years, though he offers no details about how he would force them to do
so. The governor and Legislature have limited control over the public
universities, particularly the UC system...

For years, Santa Monicans have asked for an app for its bus sysem, the Big Blue Bus. The wait is nearly over, city officials say. After a testing period, an app could launch late summer... Next month, city staff will meet with the developer to review the app. A
pilot group - made up of staffers and Big Blue Bus customers - will
download the app and try it out for 30-60 days. The customer pool was
arranged about a year ago, made up of students and daily commuters...

Monday, April 21, 2014

There have been many
firsts in my career: first woman attorney general of Arizona, first woman
governor to win reelection in Arizona, first woman secretary of the Department
of Homeland Security. And now I'm the first woman president of the University
of California. But I was a woman first.

The somewhat elusive
topic of leadership and women raises several important questions. Do we subtly
send messages to girls that they should not be leaders? Is leadership something
that can be taught? And, fundamentally, what makes a leader?

I imagine many people
have heard of the new movement to ban the word bossy. Facebook chief
operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
and Anna Maria Chavez, the CEO of the Girl Scouts, are leading the effort.

Sandberg says that when
parents are tempted to describe their daughters as bossy, they should instead
try saying, "My daughter has executive leadership skills." According
to Sandberg, she has never heard anyone say that phrase without laughing. Bossy is a pejorative word for girls, its usage just one example
of how we steer women away from leadership. It is an unassailable fact that we
have whole swaths of our economy where there are virtually no women...

It's interesting that the BAM (?) group that keeps yelling at Regents meetings for Napolitano to resign has a male yell captain who seems to be in charge of organizing the speakers/yellers. Yours truly can't remember what BAM is supposed to stand for. Badass Angry Mob? Bullies And Mudslingers?

Anyway, there was a song that seems to go with the op ed:

There
have been many firsts in my career: first woman attorney general of
Arizona, first woman governor to win reelection in Arizona, first woman
secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. And now I'm the first
woman president of the University of California.
But I was a woman first.
The somewhat elusive topic of leadership and women raises several
important questions. Do we subtly send messages to girls that they
should not be leaders? Is leadership something that can be taught? And,
fundamentally, what makes a leader?
I imagine many people have heard of the new movement to ban the word bossy.
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, former Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, and Anna Maria Chavez, the CEO of the Girl
Scouts, are leading the effort.

Sandberg says that when parents are tempted to describe their
daughters as bossy, they should instead try saying, "My daughter has
executive leadership skills." According to Sandberg, she has never heard
anyone say that phrase without laughing.Bossy is a pejorative word for girls, its usage just one
example of how we steer women away from leadership. It is an
unassailable fact that we have whole swaths of our economy where there
are virtually no women.